Cargando…

Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring

Males produce numerous sperm in a single ejaculate that greatly outnumber their potential egg targets. Recent studies found that phenotypic and genotypic variation among sperm in a single ejaculate of a male affects the fitness and performance of the resulting offspring. Specifically, within‐ejacula...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Alavioon, Ghazal, Cabrera Garcia, Andrea, LeChatelier, Magali, Maklakov, Alexei A., Immler, Simone
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6591544/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31289692
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.101
_version_ 1783429752936202240
author Alavioon, Ghazal
Cabrera Garcia, Andrea
LeChatelier, Magali
Maklakov, Alexei A.
Immler, Simone
author_facet Alavioon, Ghazal
Cabrera Garcia, Andrea
LeChatelier, Magali
Maklakov, Alexei A.
Immler, Simone
author_sort Alavioon, Ghazal
collection PubMed
description Males produce numerous sperm in a single ejaculate that greatly outnumber their potential egg targets. Recent studies found that phenotypic and genotypic variation among sperm in a single ejaculate of a male affects the fitness and performance of the resulting offspring. Specifically, within‐ejaculate sperm selection for sperm longevity increased the performance of the resulting offspring in several key life‐history traits in early life. Because increased early‐life reproductive performance often correlates with rapid ageing, it is possible that within‐ejaculate sperm selection increases early‐life fitness at the cost of accelerated senescence. Alternatively, within‐ejaculate sperm selection could improve offspring quality throughout the life cycle, including reduced age‐specific deterioration. We tested the two alternative hypotheses in an experimental setup using zebrafish Danio rerio. We found that within‐ejaculate sperm selection for sperm longevity reduced age‐specific deterioration of fecundity and offspring survival but had no effect on fertilization success in males. Remarkably, we found an opposing effect of within‐ejaculate sperm selection on female fecundity, where selection for sperm longevity resulted in increased early‐life performance followed by a slow decline, while females sired by unselected sperm started low but increased their fecundity with age. Intriguingly, within‐ejaculate sperm selection also reduced the age‐specific decline in fertilization success in females, suggesting that selection for sperm longevity improves at least some aspects of female reproductive ageing. These results demonstrate that within‐ejaculate variation in sperm phenotype contributes to individual variation in animal life histories in the two sexes and may have important implications for assisted fertilization programs in livestock and humans.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6591544
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-65915442019-07-09 Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring Alavioon, Ghazal Cabrera Garcia, Andrea LeChatelier, Magali Maklakov, Alexei A. Immler, Simone Evol Lett Letters Males produce numerous sperm in a single ejaculate that greatly outnumber their potential egg targets. Recent studies found that phenotypic and genotypic variation among sperm in a single ejaculate of a male affects the fitness and performance of the resulting offspring. Specifically, within‐ejaculate sperm selection for sperm longevity increased the performance of the resulting offspring in several key life‐history traits in early life. Because increased early‐life reproductive performance often correlates with rapid ageing, it is possible that within‐ejaculate sperm selection increases early‐life fitness at the cost of accelerated senescence. Alternatively, within‐ejaculate sperm selection could improve offspring quality throughout the life cycle, including reduced age‐specific deterioration. We tested the two alternative hypotheses in an experimental setup using zebrafish Danio rerio. We found that within‐ejaculate sperm selection for sperm longevity reduced age‐specific deterioration of fecundity and offspring survival but had no effect on fertilization success in males. Remarkably, we found an opposing effect of within‐ejaculate sperm selection on female fecundity, where selection for sperm longevity resulted in increased early‐life performance followed by a slow decline, while females sired by unselected sperm started low but increased their fecundity with age. Intriguingly, within‐ejaculate sperm selection also reduced the age‐specific decline in fertilization success in females, suggesting that selection for sperm longevity improves at least some aspects of female reproductive ageing. These results demonstrate that within‐ejaculate variation in sperm phenotype contributes to individual variation in animal life histories in the two sexes and may have important implications for assisted fertilization programs in livestock and humans. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-02-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6591544/ /pubmed/31289692 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.101 Text en © 2019 The Author(s). Evolution Letters published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB). This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Letters
Alavioon, Ghazal
Cabrera Garcia, Andrea
LeChatelier, Magali
Maklakov, Alexei A.
Immler, Simone
Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title_full Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title_fullStr Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title_full_unstemmed Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title_short Selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
title_sort selection for longer lived sperm within ejaculate reduces reproductive ageing in offspring
topic Letters
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6591544/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31289692
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/evl3.101
work_keys_str_mv AT alavioonghazal selectionforlongerlivedspermwithinejaculatereducesreproductiveageinginoffspring
AT cabreragarciaandrea selectionforlongerlivedspermwithinejaculatereducesreproductiveageinginoffspring
AT lechateliermagali selectionforlongerlivedspermwithinejaculatereducesreproductiveageinginoffspring
AT maklakovalexeia selectionforlongerlivedspermwithinejaculatereducesreproductiveageinginoffspring
AT immlersimone selectionforlongerlivedspermwithinejaculatereducesreproductiveageinginoffspring